Apple Classroom - Airplane mode

[Bev]

Is there anyway of preventing the pupils using airplane mode to disconnect their iPads from apple classroom?

[RLR]

No, airplane mode is not currently controllable via an MDM (apple haven't made it available). Airplane mode also overrides the restriction to stop students changing their Bluetooth settings if you have Bluetooth settings enforced.

[Bev]

So even though I have bluetooth restricted, they can put it in airplane mode, and switch the bluetooth off?

 

That explains a lot...

[RLR]

So even though I have bluetooth restricted, they can put it in airplane mode, and switch the bluetooth off?

 

That explains a lot...

 

Yep, as soon as they turn Airplane mode off, Bluetooth will come back on if you have it restricted to on (the restriction is only to stop them changing it. So if you restrict it whilst Bluetooth is off, it will always be off). I hope Apple changes this.

 

Another issue we had was if we enforced bluetooth, students couldn't pair their own bluetooth devices. This is the main reason we no longer use the restriction.

[Bev]

So we have bluetooth enforced to on (as I checked they were all on before I set the restriction), I would assume that would allow them to connect to other devices?

[RLR]

So we have bluetooth enforced to on (as I checked they were all on before I set the restriction), I would assume that would allow them to connect to other devices?

 

We thought the same but it seems to stop any changes to bluetooth as a whole. So no pairing of new devices if it is restricted.

[Brimstone]

The way i see this is....

 

Is there a restriction to stop students from....

 

Chatting in class

Standing on chairs or desks

Throwing things around the class.

 

No there isn't, it's called good classroom management.

[RLR]

The way i see this is....

 

Is there a restriction to stop students from....

 

Chatting in class

Standing on chairs or desks

Throwing things around the class.

 

No there isn't, it's called good classroom management.

 

Yep, I think teaching the staff how the classroom app works will help. If they know it requires bluetooth and a student is showing as offline then their bluetooth is turned off. It's then up to the teacher to give a caution or bad behaviour point (what ever your school does).

[edmokeski]

We follow the same -- it's in policy and the user agreement students sign when getting their devices that they will always leave bluetooth on. We try to educate to dispel the myth that it makes an appreciable difference to battery life. For students who disable it, it's up to teachers to apply standard behavior sanctions. (Some of them are quicker to apply sanctions than others, of course. There are also those among the "digitally anxious" who will accept pretty much any tech-y sounding excuse a student gives.) Overall works fine, though. (In fact, has probably worked better than almost all other iPad policies that are meant to be enforced by behavior management rather than technical restrictions.)